Public Service Survival Guide: The Skills Nobody Teaches You
You know how to write a briefing note. You understand governance. You’ve completed the mandatory training.
But what about managing up? Building your personal brand? Navigating organisational politics? Adapting to AI? Finding mentors? Influencing senior stakeholders when you don’t have authority?
Public Service Survival Guide focuses on the real-world skills that often determine career success but are rarely covered in formal training. Designed for early-career professionals, this conference provides practical advice from people who have successfully navigated public service careers and learned these lessons through experience.
Attendees will come away with new insights, frameworks and approaches they can start using immediately to accelerate their career development and increase their impact.
For almost a decade, our annual IPAA WA Public Service Young Professionals Conference has inspired more than 2,000 young and early career professionals from across local, state, and federal government, the not-for-profit and community sectors.
It is your opportunity to meet, hear from and connect with your peers in public service, while creating the professional relationships that can accelerate your career.
The conference is a platform to discuss the important issues affecting you and those who are early in their journeys serving the public.
It is a forum to connect with like-minded peers, hear from experienced leaders and leading practitioners, and leave inspired for the important public service work you do.
The 2027 Young Professionals Conference’s program is designed to support your growth as an early-career professional. You can look forward to:
- a host of engaging presentations
- practical and interactive sessions
- exploring real-world challenges
- actionable insights
- thought-provoking discussions
- opportunities to build your network
- …and more!
The conference consistently delivers exceptional value. The 2026 YP Conference panel discussions, workshops and interactive sessions had a 97% satisfaction rating from those who attended:
The highlight was the combination of high-quality speakers and the openness of conversations across the room. In particular, the themes around leading through change, navigating non-linear career paths, and building adaptability were highly relevant. The ability to connect these ideas to real public sector contexts made the sessions practical and actionable.
The workshop was genuinely engaging and gave me space to reflect on how my own team operates and how we’re tracking together. The session encouraged a deeper look at team dynamics and my role within them.
It is a wonderful theme, and all the speakers had different perspectives and inspiration to share. The theme really resonated with where I am at in my career right now, and being so young, it really did inspire me to say yes, and do it, even if it’s scary. I absolutely loved the theme of the conference.
The highlight was hearing from an ex-Olympian as his experiences of rebuilding a team from the ground up. It made the concept of ‘change’ very relatable to someone who is a close follower of sport.
